memories through typing

i'd like to go
back twenty years
& type this poem
on an eye-bee-emm
selectric typewriter

i have fond memories
of that heavy, blue,
metallic goliath

my mom worked
that thing over
like a pickpocket
in time square--
deft, subtle

she owned that machine

the staccato
rat-tat-tat
machine gunfire
would echo through
the house as she banged
out that week's bulletin

the silver ping pong
sized ball looked like
a hammer smacking the ribbon

my father, in
the other room,
would finger-peck
his sermon into
existence &
then practice it
over & over again

(rehearsing
rehearsing)

out loud until he
had it mostly memorized
so he could
speak salvation
to his little country
flock

next sunday